Controlled Zone
by Strut
Summary: Spoilers for the pilot “Switchman” episode. Blair wants to observe a zone in a controlled setting. These events place shortly after the mall scene in the pilot.


Disclaimer: I don't own them, Pet Fly/Paramount does. This is for entertainment only. No money is being made. (January 3, 2009)

Warnings: A few small swear words.

Controlled Zone  
by **Strut **

"I just don't think it's a good idea, Chief." Jim shifted his bag of groceries, turned and walked down the street, slipping through the crowd with the practiced easy of a longtime city dweller.

Blair shook his head, hitched his backpack further up his shoulder and hurried after the retreating figure. He'd been trying for what seemed like hours to talk Jim into a little experiment. Ellison was his Holy Grail, and rather like the quest for that object, it was turning into a regular crusade trying to convince Jim to let Blair study him – or, more accurately, his senses.

The reluctant sentinel just wanted things to return to normal, while Blair wanted nothing more in the world than to study those unwanted senses. He jogged, caught up to Jim and stepped in front of him, halting his forward progress. "The only way you can learn control is to find out what triggers them and learn to avoid the cause or causes. Think of it like when you learned to ride a bike; you had to work at it to learn to coordinate pedaling, balance and steering all at the same time. "

The light blue eyes rolled upward briefly before returning to meet Blair's. "Look, Sandburg, I _wanted_ to learn how to do that. I don't want to learn how to have a…a…" He looked about nervously, whispering like he was about to say a dirty word and a child was near. "A zone." His voice returned to a normal level again. "I want to avoid_ever_having those. I was nearly flattened by a garbage truck today."

Blair grabbed the sentinel's elbow and gave it a short shake. "Exactly! Only by learning the triggers can we learn how to avoid them."

"What's this 'we' business?" Jim shook his head. "No, Sandburg." He marched resolutely around Blair, lengthening his stride while still walking.

Sighing heavily, Blair trotted after him once more as his mind raced. _Without a properly controlled environment, tests and studies, there will be no valid, reproducible data for my thesis; without a thesis, there'll be no doctorate. I've got to convince him to let me do this. It'll help him… and me. Oh, please let me not start babbling like I did when he showed up at my office. I_ _think I have a couple of bruises from that little encounter, first from the shelving in my office and then from… bingo! I've got an angle! Manipulative – but an angle_. "Jim, you agreed to be studied and that I would help you learn control." Blair carefully censored his speech so any casual listener wouldn't have a clue what they were talking about. They neared the lot where Jim had parked, and there were fewer people on the sidewalks.

Eyes fixed ahead, Ellison kept threading through the thinning crowd. "No. I'm not a lab rat for you to study."

"I know that, but –"

"No means no, Sandburg." Jim checked for traffic then crossed over to the lot. "And I mean no."

Blair's shoulders slumped as he again trailed after his reluctant subject. It was time to use his ace. "I saved your life."

Jim stopped midstride and dropped his head.

It was a successful strike, but a low blow. Blair knew Ellison would acquiesce, but it felt wrong. He stepped in front of Jim as he roughly shoved the feeling aside for the moment and locked eyes with the bigger man. As a scientist, he had to be objective and removed from his test subject in order to collect proper data sets so his results wouldn't be skewed. He'd done studies before; why should this one be any different? He was determined to complete his thesis. "You would've been street pizza if I hadn't knocked you down."

A muscle in the detective's jaw line flexed impressively as he muttered in an exasperated tone. "I'm being nibbled to death by a duck. Fine, Daffy, but there are going to be some rules."

"But –"

Jim held up one finger. "Rule number one: No cameras, video or otherwise."

"Hey! I've gotta –"

He continued as if Blair hadn't spoken and added a second finger to the first. "Rule number two: No labs."

"But –"

A third digit rose firmly. "Rule number three: No one else can be there. Period."

"Uh, Jim, I have to be there."

The detective rolled his eyes, unlocked his vehicle and got in. He leaned over and unlocked the passenger side. When Blair opened the passenger-side door Jim continued, without any real heat in his voice. "You don't count. You're not a person. You're a duck."

Blair climbed in and flashed a mischievous grin at Jim. "Quack."

Ellison gave an exasperated sigh and replied, "A _very_ annoying duck."

**XXXX**

Later that day…

"Tell me again why we're doing this in my home?" Ellison questioned while seated at his table.

Blair could feel the man's eyes on him as he walked back and forth, attempting to pace a rut in the wood flooring as thoughts of how to proceed flashed through his brain. He kept moving, knowing he had to ease the big man into taking his tests. "To meet your rule number two, it's not a lab. But it _is_ a controlled environment, well, as controlled as possible outside of a lab anyway. Plus, you're home and will relax more easily here. It's safe."

Jim fidgeted uncomfortably. "Now what?" He grabbed a small rubber ball off the counter and squeezed in his hand before bouncing it a few times.

_Well, it isn't really such a _small_ ball_, thought Blair. _It just looks that way, due to the size of the sentinel's hands_. He also noticed Jim seemed to use it like a stress toy, or maybe as an exercise device, and that stood to reason. Blair could well remember the incredibly strong grip that had grabbed him and lifted him off the floor back in his office. Shoving that thought away, he rushed to answer Jim's question.

"Well, the zone-out factor is caused when you focus too much on something. I've got a red Frisbee in my bag." Blair shrugged his backpack off his shoulder and dropped it on the table, unzipping it as soon as it hit. He snaked his right hand in to retrieve the plastic disk.

The sentinel's eyes narrowed. "Careful with the furniture, and you're not throwing that thing in my home, Chief."

Blair blinked at that. The man was bouncing a ball in the loft. What was so different about a Frisbee? "Why not? I won't hurt anything. This place is bare." He spun in a tight circle, taking in the loft. "I mean bare! Nothing on the walls, hardly any color, and let's not talk about the sparse furniture. This place has got so much potential –"

"You're not here to pick out curtains and decorate. You're here to help me, and if you're not going to do that, then there's the door." Jim climbed to his feet and pointed at the portal.

_Ack, I'm losing him!_ Blair thought as he held out his hands in a placating fashion. "Oooh-kay, easy big guy, calm down. It's not like I wanna move in or anything. Getting back to the subject, I thought that since you had a zone on a red Frisbee that –"

"It might trigger another one. I get that, but you're still not tossing that thing around in here." Jim cut Blair off as he crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at him.

"That's okay, no problem. I've got other ideas. According to Burton's monograph, the zone-out factor occurs when a sentinel focuses too much on one sense. You don't have to concentrate on the Frisbee; it can be anything: a smell, a sound, a sight… anything." Blair bounced in place, his hands flitting about, as his enthusiasm for his favorite subject flowed out of him. He didn't understand why Jim wasn't as excited about this as he was.

"Chief, you've gone over this before. You had me sniff out roses at the mall and listen in on that teacher's assistant's private conversation to help you troll for tail."

Blair flushed a little. That's when he'd learned that Alissa thought he was a dork. _Ouch! Talk about mixed signals and hurt feelings. _He'd been getting good vibes from her for weeks, only to find out that she wasn't interested in him _that _'d have a hard time facing her the next time he saw her. He quickly ushered his thoughts back to the problem at hand. "Okay, why don't we start with you telling me exactly what happened after you stormed out of my office."

The muscle he'd noticed before flexed again in Jim's jaw line. "I didn't storm. I left." The detective gave the ball an irritated toss, bouncing it once off the floor before catching and squeezing it once again.

"Right." Blair somehow controlled the strong the desire to roll his eyes. He took out a notepad and pen. "Ooookay, umm… just tell me what happened. Please."

There was a gusty, resigned sigh. "I was heading toward the parking lot. A kid threw the Frisbee. It was like I could see it spinning. The color blurred… everything else faded… the disk seemed to magnify and it was like…" Ellison faltered, struggling to find the words. He bounced the ball a few times, obviously thinking.

"Details, please."

Ice-blue eyes narrowed in frustration. "Well it _wasn't_ like I was thinking – like some dumb, throwback caveman-type, 'Oh, look at the pretty colors.'" He gave the ball an extra-hard toss, catching it deftly when it rocketed back at him. He squeezed it hard while glaring at Blair.

It was a verbal sucker punch to the student's solar plexus. "I didn't say that. Wasn't even thinking it. Again, I'm sorry I called you a throwback in my office. Didn't mean it, man, really. Please try to explain as best you can what it was like," Blair encouraged gently.

The tension faded, and Jim got a distant, thoughtful look on his face. "When you were a kid, did you ever take a magnifying glass and look at the print in a comic book? It was like that. The color in those books isn't one solid shade; it's actually a bunch of little dots of slightly different colors. Flesh tone in a comic book – from a distance, not under the glass – might look pink, but it's really a mix of red and white dots really close together. That's what I was thinking, I guess. It was like I suddenly had a magnifying glass and could see the dots that made up the color of the disk. The more I looked, the more I saw. Until everything went gray."

The sentinel shoved a hand through his close-cropped hair. "The next thing I knew was there was that truck above me. I barely had time to turn my head to keep from getting whacked by the driveshaft." The ball was agitatedly bounced a few more times. "That would have been messy and likely fatal." He turned his eyes back to Blair.

"Hey, no way was I gonna let you become street pizza." The younger man grinned as he bounced on his toes. A feeling of having done something good and special flooded him once more. He clapped a hand on Jim's shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze.

A shuttered expression came over the bigger man's face. "Yeah, you didn't want to lose your 'Holy Grail' did you?"

Blair blinked at that, and the good feeling slid backwards, retreating under the close scrutiny of the sentinel. He could tell Jim was still quite wary of him and unsure of his motives. "Well, no, but I wouldn't let _anyone_ get hit by a garbage truck if there was anything I could do to prevent it. Remember, I did that after you left, after you turned me down."

Ellison gave a noncommittal grunt that could have been a "thank you" or simply a grunt. A few heartbeats thumped before his light-blue eyes flicked back to Blair's darker ones. "You said it sucked."

Taken aback by the change in subject, Blair could only respond with a confused, "Huh?"

"After the truck went over us and stopped, we both stood up. That's when you said it sucked. Why?"

Blair blinked rapidly for a moment as he quickly pondered the change in subject. This wasn't really a change as much as another way of obtaining more information about himself and his motives… _Motives! Well, duh! The man's a detective; he wants to know details. He's trying to figure out my motives for helping him, besides what I told him. He needs to know how I tick. Got it! Geez, he looks impatient; gotta convince him fast. _

"Well, that was the first time I'd ever done something like that. I mean ever. Oh, I'd thought about what I might do if I were ever faced with a situation like that. I mean, who hasn't thought, 'What would I do if _fill in the_ _blank_ happened?' Well, maybe not getting run over – or nearly so – by a garbage truck, specifically, but any crisis, ya know? So, when I chased after you to warn you about the zone-out factor and you stopped in middle of the road, I saw that garbage truck headed for you and you didn't move out of the way…." Blair began pacing and agitatedly pushed a lock of riotous curls behind one ear. "It was like it was happening in slow motion. I really didn't do much thinking after that. I just _knew_ I had to get you outta the way."

He swallowed hard, shaking his head in disbelief. "And I saw that no one else moved to help. I saw people who were a lot closer to you than I was just stop and watch. _Sick,_ man, and I don't mean _sick_ in a good way either. I mean _sick_ as in _yuck_. How could they just not even try? No one even yelled. They just stood there and did nothing. Granted, some didn't even see what was going to happen, but some did. That's what sucked, I guess… well that and when I nearly wet myself when it rolled above us. I'm really not the brave type. I expected to feel it hit me and then wondered about if I'd hear my own bones – and yours – crunching under the tires. I wondered how much it would hurt or if I'd even have time to feel the pain. I thought my heart would burst from my chest, and –"

"Chief!" Ellison interrupted the breathless monologue, holding his hand up in a stop motion.

Blair blinked at the visual cue. "What?"

"Breathe."

"Right, sorry. I tend to get worked up sometimes. Who wouldn't?" He tilted his head and looked at the sentinel. "Well, maybe you wouldn't."

"Anyone ever tell you that you have diarrhea of the mouth?"

"Not recently." Blair looked at Jim thoughtfully. "Anyone ever tell you that you have a sarcastic sense of humor? By the way, I know what you're doing. You got me sidetracked, probably to get out of this zone test. It's not gonna work though."

The big man just gave Blair a look that positively oozed innocence as he bounced the ball once more. "Fine, let's just do this."

"Okay, give me that." Blair reached out a hand for the ball. When Ellison ignored his hand, he grabbed it and a brief tug-of-war erupted before the detective released the ball. Blair understood the maneuver as a way of Jim letting him know he was only giving up because he _chose _to do so, not because Blair wanted him to. The man definitely had control issues, as well as trust issues.

The student nodded at Jim. He'd worked with belligerent pupils before and knew how to deal with such attitudes. It was accomplished by not caving, by being firm and showing he meant business. "All right, I know about you zoning on the Frisbee, but is there any other time that you zoned or started to zone?" He sat down at the table and pulled out his notepad again as he looked at Ellison expectantly.

Jim shifted his eyes slightly down and to the right, remembering. "I believe I might have started to zone while I was staking out the warehouse. The water for my coffee started boiling, and something about the way the bubbles sounded or looked caught my attention. I became absorbed in the motion of the water, the way the bubbles formed at the bottom of the pan and rolled to the surface." He stopped for a moment. "I really can't say why I'd found the boiling water that interesting; I just know I did." He gave a minute shiver, as if shaking off the thought.

"What, if anything, pulled you out of the zone?" Blair scratched away on his notepad.

"The radio. One of the other officers called me, and I snapped out right away." Jim gave a one-shouldered shrug.

Blair nodded encouragingly as he jotted the information down. "Keep going. Any other time?"

"I don't think it was a zone, but when I tried to climb onto the bad guy's cycle, he turned to look at me and the reflection of my face seemed to pop out at me like a-a-a… 3D movie. It was enough to make me lose my balance and fall off the bike." He shook his head, then shrugged, flipping his hand up in a quick "I-don't-know" motion.

"Oookay, that's a real good start; gives me some more ideas." Seeing a tense look flit across Jim's face, he added, "Don't look at me like that. I promise I won't do anything to hurt or embarrass you." Blair crossed his heart.

The jaw muscle flexed a little, but that was the only response Blair got to his promise. "Right, here we go. I'll pull you out just as soon as I see that you've zoned, okay? Well, right after I put a magic-marker mustache on you, that is."

"Try it Darwin, and they won't find enough of you left to bury." Ellison snorted.

Grinning, the anthropologist put out his hands in a warding fashion. "Got it, tough guy. No marker mustaches. Sight seems to be what you've zoned on most, so let's start out with that and then go on to the others." He pulled a small, colorful toy from his backpack. "All right, now watch the top. Watch as it spins; focus…"

It took several attempts and some concentrating, but the sentinel finally slipped into a zone. All expression fell away, and his jaw slackened slightly. A dull, unfocused look came across his eyes.

_Wow! So that's what it looks like_. Blair spoke quietly, "Jim."

With a shudder, the big man was back. Ellison quickly checked his watch.

That hurt Blair's feelings a bit. "Hey, I made a promise, big guy. I meant it."

A grunt was Jim's only response.

Blair kept the tests short, and after a few times, he could see that Jim was finally beginning to trust him. A word or a quick touch to his arm or shoulder pulled the sentinel right back.

Feeling more confident, Blair decided that he would let Jim stay zoned for just a few extra seconds, so he'd have a little more time to observe what happened. He quickly opted not to tell Ellison, as it might skew the results. Or Jim might simply refuse. He'd only need a few seconds.

"Let's move on from sight to hearing."

"I'm getting a headache," Jim muttered. As his eyes flicked up to meet the younger man's, his flexing jaw muscle once more revealed his level of tension.

Blair nodded. Clearly Jim was nearing the end of his limited patience. "Okay, this'll be the last test today." He put away the top and brought out a metronome and started it.

Ellison tilted his head a bit, but after just a few clicks, grimaced. "I can't listen to that. There's this other noise it's clashing with."

"Concentrate on separating the sounds. Can you describe it?" Blair urged gently.

Jim's head tilted a bit more. "It seems sort of familiar. If I can only listen a little closer – " And just that quickly, the big man zoned.

Blair rapidly made his observations, taking note of the sentinel's pulse and respirations. Nearly a full minute went by, and he knew it was time to break the zone.

"Okay, Jim." Blair shook his head at his mistake. Ellison was zoned on sound, so his voice wasn't likely to work. He touched the big man's shoulder. Nothing. He tried again, gripping the shoulder and giving it a firm shake. That didn't work either.

Maybe the absence of the sound from the metronome might be enough to snap Jim out of it. He stopped it and tried the shoulder shake again. Still nothing. He took another reading of Jim's breathing and heartbeat. They were slower this time.

"Oh, crap!"

How much further would they go down? Would they stop altogether? Blair's mind raced wildly. He couldn't lose the sentinel now, not when he'd only just found him.

_Think, Sandburg, think! Okay, what are my options? Well, if it gets bad enough, I've got to call an ambulance; that's a given. But I don't think we're there yet. I could try pouring cold water on him, but he might think it's joke and kill me. I'll keep that on reserve. _

_Um, smell? Okay, that could work. I need something strong. Smelling salts would work, but I don't have any on me…. Note to self: buy smelling salts – Bleach!_

Blair snapped his fingers and dashed off to look for a bottle. He found one in the bathroom under the sink. Pouring a little liquid on some toilet paper, he hurried back to Ellison's side. He held the tissue under Jim's nose.

The reaction was swift, but not in a good way. Immediately the sentinel's breathing changed, became labored, and Jim started wheezing.

Blair flung the tissue away. But being tissue, it didn't go far. He snatched it up, ran to the bathroom and flushed it. After washing his hands, he raced back to Ellison, who had remained sitting in the chair by the table but was slowly starting to list precariously to the left.

Not even thinking about it, the student hugged the older man. "I'm sorry. Oh God, I'm sorry. I didn't know that would happen. He pulled Jim closer, so his head was against Blair's chest. He rubbed Ellison's arm and upper back with one hand; the other remained holding the head, a thumb nervously stroking Jim's jaw line. Not thinking, simply reacting, Blair retained his hold unable to comprehend why he felt the over whelming _need_ to do this.

Thankfully, the congestion cleared relatively quickly.

Blair released a breath he didn't know he was holding. "That's better. Now you need to come back, or I'm gonna have to call an ambulance. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

The big man slowly slid more into Blair, and he struggled to maintain his grip. "Geez, you're heavy." He puffed as he tried to push Jim back upright.

He kept up his litany of words and touches until the sentinel gave a little shudder that Blair had come to recognize as the incipient stage of coming out of a zone. The big man stiffened in his arms.

Blair moved to release the hug, and suddenly, he got an elbow in the gut. Grunting and trying to catch the breath that'd been forced out of him, he stepped back, holding his stomach.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Sandburg?" Ellison shot to his feet and positively loomed over Blair as he grabbed the younger man by the scruff of his collar and pulled upwards.

"I –" Blair gasped for breath from the double impact of elbow to gut and now his collar was being tightened around his neck. "You were zoned… *wheeze* C-couldn't get you back."

The irate man gave him a shake. "Bull! You didn't have to do that before." Jim checked his watch, and no ice in the world could be as cold as the look he shot at Blair. "Twenty minutes! Christ!" He gave Blair another hard shake.

Blair tugged at his collar, trying to loosen it enough to drag in a desperately needed breath. "Sorry! *gasp* Tried to pull you out like before. Couldn't. *wheeze* Tried to use smell – bleach – too much, you nearly stopped breathing. *wheeze* Sorry! Worried, felt bad, hugged. Breathing got better. But… sorry. *gasp* Didn't mean anything by it."

Confusion and anger fled Ellison's face and the truth registered, he released his hold on Blair, gently straightening the crumpled collar before completely releasing it. "I'm the one who's sorry. You see, I was a ranger, and being awakened like that – with a stranger's arms around me – I woke up fighting. My ex-wife used to have to wake me by shaking my foot."

Blair nodded as he fought to catch his breath, watching Jim hurry to the kitchen to fetch some water. "Yeah, heard something about that happening, and people in the army could get away with hitting their captain, provided it happened within the first few seconds of being woken up." He coughed a little, his throat still aching.

Ellison returned and gently nudged Blair onto a chair at the table, handing him the glass of water. "Sorry. When you catch your breath, you can explain how it happened."

Once he regained his breath, Blair filled Jim in on the events. "Oh, and what happened to start this anyway? You were listening to the metronome, and there was another sound that caught your attention. Do you know what it was?"

Jim tilted his head for a second, listening, then straightened it. His face reddened slightly, and the words ran together as he spoke. "Itwasaheartbeat."

Blair shot out of his chair and gripped the sentinel's shoulders. "Oh, cool! You can hear a heartbeat! Wow! Hey, whose heart did you hear? Your own? Oh, man! Was it from another apartment? Outside on the street? How _good_ is your hearing? I wonder if I can get access to a hearing testing machine. I think I can call in a favor or two from this ENT intern I know. So, whose heartbeat was it?"

Ellison mumbled something.

"What did you say?"

"Yours," Jim whispered.

Blair's jaw dropped; he was speechless for a moment.

"Now, that's something I could get used to."

He shook off the weird, but somehow comforting and warm feeling, that the thought of the sentinel admitting hearing his heartbeat gave him. "What?"

"You, at a loss for words. Yep, I could definitely get used to that." Jim lightly cuffed Blair upside the head.

"Hey! Not cool, don't mess with the hair." Blair chuckled, batting at the sentinel's hand.

XXXX

Later, as he trotted down the steps to his car, it dawned on Blair that this study, with this subject, was somehow going to make it very difficult for him to remain objective and removed. It was his job – his duty as a scientist, as an anthropologist – to stand by and observe, film and take notes on the events unfolding around him without interfering… no matter how tempting. It was one of the cardinal rules. He'd have to be very careful, or he would become part of the story without meaning to.

**Not the end**…. We all know it's just the beginning of a great friendship.


End file.
